"Sometimes a franchise just has a big, black mark over it and no amount of wishful thinking can turn the tide..."-Jaap Still

"Brilliant use of an instructional picture book."-Kyle in Newport News

"Does Met$tra have a gambling problem?"-Erik Love

"Hasta la vista baby. I throw up the white flag."-Joe

"I'm still a fan, but enough is enough."-Meet the Mets

"I watch the grass grow - it's more exciting."-David

"Freaking Chipper Jones. I HATE Freaking Chipper Jones."-Dave Murray

"Good God man, what have you done??!! You've released the genie from the bottle. I see the showers and toilets backing up at Shea, emergency landings at LGA, unusual tides in Flushing Bay, and when they break ground for the new stadium the construction gang will unearth and disturb some ancient Indian burial ground for unlucky and cursed members of the Iroquois nation...Blaspheme no more Metstradamus! You are tempting the fates!"-The Metmaster

Saturday, April 18, 2009

All right, all right ... so he's more like slapping .387, but a slap looks like a hit in the boxscore. And two slaps and two RBI's look like the first walk off hit and the first dogpile at Kitti Field as the Mets took a 5-4 decision from Willie Randolph's Brewers, and Castillo avoids punches and scorn for a few hours.

More firsts: Gary Sheffield provided not only the first 500th home run in the history of the park, but I believe the first curtain call as well, which is something you can stump your friends with in ten years or so. (I don't believe that David Wright was called out of the dugout after tying the game on Monday but if he was, I'm sorry. Don't kill me.)

I kept thinking about our friend Wallace Matthews, and how he basically called Mets fans suckers for daring to get excited about Tom Glavine's 300th victory back in '07. And I'm wondering if he's doing the same thing now that Mets fans at the park dared to cheer for the first player in history to hit his 500th home run as his first for a team. At least Glavine was with the team for a good four years when 300 happened. 500 was just as odd for me as I thought it would be. I'm just glad the home run was a big one and not a dinger that made the score 9-3 Brewers, setting the stage for Castillo's walk off.

The weird part came for me afterwards, just as the ninth inning started and I'm trying to do something on my e-mail account, and I swear to you the following message pops up:

"Oops ... the system encountered a problem (#500)"

Is that a higher power telling me to lighten up on Sheffield? Okay, I'll give him this: He's said and done all the right things, and the team seems to have received him warmly after the home run. Maybe he's having that Dewey Cox epiphany where he's reflecting on his life and is ready to write that masterpiece he kept promising his brother's spirit, or in Sheff's case, maybe his uncle Doc? I don't know. For Gary Sheffield, the beautiful ride at the end of his baseball road need only consist of behaving ... as he's done so far to his credit. Home runs, even milestone ones, are gravy.

***

In an unrelated story, to welcome Randolph back to New York, Omar Minaya had a pizza delivered to Willie's hotel room at 3AM.

***

I now have a valid reason for being disgusted with the black home uniforms: For some reason, they make the dopey hideous patch stand out. I hardly noticed them on the white ones.

I tend to like the uniforms, and care less about patches, but you're right, it does stand out more. it's the orange.

I'm on board with Sheffield now. screw it, I hated the signing, but whatever, he's a Met now. I still hope it's mostly a first man off the bench pinch hitting type role with the occasional day off for Church and/or Murphy, but he's a Met now. At least until they find a reason to get Evans up here.